.

Dedicated to the military history and civilization of the Eastern Roman Empire (330 to 1453)

"Time in its irresistible and ceaseless flow carries along on its flood all created things and drowns them in the depths of obscurity."

- - - - Princess Anna Comnena (1083–1153) - Byzantine historian

Monday, January 19, 2015

Kaninë Castle, Albania - Roman and Byzantine Fortress

Kanine Castle is near the Bay of Vlorë, an inlet on the Adriatic Sea.

For the generals and Emperor in Constantinople, just waking up in the morning must have been a nightmare.

Trying to defend the Eastern Roman Empire must have been a frightening job. The borders were unbelievable long stretching from Morocco and Spain to the Alps to the Danube out to the Crimean Peninsula to the Caucasus Mountains, Mesopotamia down to Egypt and the Sahara. It was not unusual for the Roman military to be fighting wars on three continents at the same time.

The frontiers of the Empire would have been dotted by an endless series of major and minor fortifications.

The manpower required to staff all of these posts stretched the army to a breaking point.

Kanine Castle

While browsing the net I accidentally ran across Kanine.

There is absolutely no reason to feature this castle. It is like a joke historical marker that says, "Nothing happened on this spot." But I like a challenge.

The Empire was dotted with endless anonymous outposts. Officers and troopers were assigned the thankless tasks of keeping order at remote locations far from any real civilization.

Kanine would have been one of those remote posts. Until the Norman invasions in the 11th and 12th centuries not too much happened in the province. All the barbarian invasion action would have been further east on the Danube River frontier.

Still, the fort would have been important for keeping order among the local population and defend the coast from any raids by pirates.

The Castle of Kanine was located in the Theme of Dyrrhachium. This was a Byzantine military-civilian province (theme) located in modern Albania, covering the Adriatic coast of the country. It was established in the early 9th century and named after its capital, Dyrrhachium.

.History

The castle is believed to have been erected in the 3rd century B.C. In the 4th century B.C. the castle was transformed into a fortress town. It would have served as a military post for both a united Roman Empire as well as for the Eastern Empire.Kanine Castle was built in the village with the same name which is about 6 km from Vlorë. The castle rises on the side of the Shushica Mountain, about 380 meters above the sea level. The castle was built on the site of an ancient settlement, one of the oldest in the Vlorë region.

Vlorë is one of the oldest cities of Albania. It was founded by Ancient Greeks in the 6th century BC and named Aulōn, one of several colonies on the Illyrian coast, mentioned for the first time by Ptolemy (Geographia, III, xii, 2). Other geographical documents, such as Peutinger's "Tabula" and the "Synecdemus" of Hierocles, also mention it. The city was an important port of the Roman Empire, when it was part of Epirus Nova.It became an episcopal see in the 5th century. Among the known bishops are Nazarius, in 458, and Soter, in 553 (Daniele Farlati, Illyricum sacrum, VII, 397–401). The diocese at that time belonged to the Patriarchate of Rome.In the 6th century A.D. the castle was reconstructed by Justinian I as part of his program to beef up the Balkan fortifications of the Empire. In 733 it was annexed, with all eastern Illyricum, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and yet it is not mentioned in any Notitiae episcopatuum of that Church. The bishopric had probably been suppressed, for, though the Bulgarians had been in possession of this country for some time, Avlona is not mentioned in the "Notitiae episcopatuum" of the Patriarchate of Achrida. During the Latin domination, a Latin see was established. Several of the Latin bishops mentioned by Le Quien (Oriens christianus, III, 855-8), and whom Eubel mentions under the See of Valanea in Syria, belong either to Aulon in Greece or to this Aulon in Albania (Vlorë).

Vlorë played a central role in the conflicts between the NormanKingdom of Sicily and the Byzantine Empire during the 11th and 12th centuries.The castle was the center of the Principality of Valona in the 14th century.The Principality of Valona,on the coast of modern Albania, had been fought over repeatedly between the Byzantines and various Italian powers in the 13th century. Finally conquered by Byzantium in ca. 1290, it was one of the chief imperial holdings in the Balkans.

Byzantine rule lasted until the 1340s, when the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan, taking advantage of a Byzantine civil war, took Albania.

"Upon the death of the young Andronikos [III], the worst civil war that the Romans had ever known broke out. It was a war that led to almost total destruction, reducing the great Empire of the Romans to a feeble shadow of its former self." --- Memoirs of John Kantakouzenos, Book III.

Valona fell in late 1345 or early 1346, and Dušan placed his brother-in-law, John Asen, brother of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander, in charge of Valona as his capital, and with Kanina and Berat as his main fortresses.

The civil war proved a critical turning point in the history of the Byzantine Empire. After the end of the second civil war, Byzantium was an empire in name only.

The Castle of Kanine was one of the many fortifications built or re-built by the Emperor Justinian (r. 527 - 565) to protect the Roman peoples of the Balkans from barbarian invasions. Below are a few selections by the historian Procopius about the fortification project.

By Procopius of CaesareaThe Buildings of JustinianFor it has as neighbours nations of Huns and of Goths, and the regions of Taurus and of Scythia rise up again it, as well as the haunts of the Sclaveni and of sundry other tribes — whether they are called by the writers of the most ancient history Hamaxibian or Metanastic Sauromatae, and whatever other wild race of men really either roams about or leads a settled life in that region.And in his determination to resist these barbarians who were endlessly making war, the Emperor Justinian, who did not take the matter lightly, was obliged to throw innumerable fortresses about the country, to assign to them untold garrisons of troops, and to set up all other possible obstacles to an enemy who attacked without warning and who permitted no intercourse.

Indeed it was the custom of these peoples to rise and make war upon their enemies for no particular cause, and to open hostilities without sending an embassy, and they did not bring their struggles to an end through any treaty or cease operations for any specified period, but they made their attacks without provocation and reached a decision by the sword alone.

. . . . .Thrace and especially all the suburbs of Byzantium. The people there build and adorn their suburbs, not only to meet the actual needs of life, but they display an insolent and boundless luxury and all the other vices that the power of wealth brings when it comes to men. And they accumulate much furniture in their houses and make it a point to keep costly objects in them. Thus, when it comes about that any of the enemy overrun the land of the Romans suddenly, the damage caused there is much greater than in other places, and the region is then overwhelmed with irreparable calamities.

The Emperor Anastasius had determined to put a stop to this and so built long walls at a distance of not less than forty miles from Byzantium, uniting the two shores of the sea on a line where they are separated by about a two-days' journey. By this means he thought that everything inside was placed in security. But in fact this was the cause of greater calamities. For neither was it possible to make safe a structure of such great length nor could it be guarded rigorously. And whenever the enemy descended on any portion of these long walls, they both overpowered all the guards with no difficulty, and falling unexpectedly upon the other people they inflicted loss not easy to describe.

But the Emperor rebuilt those portions of these walls which had suffered, and making the weak parts very strong for the sake of the guards, he added the following devices. He blocked up all the exits from each tower leading to those adjoining it; and he built from the ground up a single ascent inside each individual tower, which the guards there can close in case of emergency and scorn the enemy if they have penetrated inside the circuit-wall, since each tower by itself was sufficient to ensure safety for its guards. Also inside these walls he diligently made provision for safety, not only doing what has just been mentioned, but also restoring all the parts of the circuit-wall of the city of Selymbria which happened to have been damaged. These things then were done by the Emperor Justinian at the long walls.

Live Traffic for The Byzantine Military

Constantine the Great

Founder of Constantinople which would later be the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire for over one thousand years. Proclaimed religious tolerance of all religions throughout the empire. (306 - 337)

Julian the Philosopher

Born in the new city of Constantinople. Described himself as "first among equals", participated in debates and made speeches in the Constantinople Senate, fired thousands of bureaucrats, proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, author. (361 - 363)

Theodosius II

Emperor 408 to 450. Known for the Theodosian law code, and the construction of the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople. When Roman Africa fell to the Vandals in 439, both Eastern and Western Emperors sent forces to Sicily, to launch an attack at the Vandals at Carthage, but this project failed.

Leo I "The Thracian"

Emperor from 457–474. He was born Leo Marcellus in Thracia or in Dacia Aureliana province in the year 401 to a Thraco-Roman family. He served in the Roman army, rising to the rank of comes. Leo is notable for being the first Eastern Emperor to legislate in Greek rather than Latin. He worked to liberate North Africa from the Vandals with an expedition in 468 of 1,113 ships carrying 100,000 men, but in the end lost 600 ships.

Justinian The Great and Theodora

Emperor 527 to 565. Justinian was the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin as a first language. Justinian's reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". His general Belisarius conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, extending Roman control to the Atlantic Ocean. Subsequently Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic Kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the Empire after more than half a century of barbarian control. The prefect Liberius reclaimed most of southern Iberia, establishing the province of Spania. Under his rule there was a uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which is still the basis of civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of Byzantine culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia.

Maurice

Emperor from 582 to 602. A prominent general in his youth, Maurice fought with success against the Sassanid Persians. Once he became Emperor, he brought the war with Persia to a victorious conclusion: the Empire's eastern border in the Caucasus was vastly expanded and for the first time in nearly two centuries the Romans were no longer obliged to pay the Persians thousands of pounds of gold annually for peace. Maurice campaigned extensively in the Balkans against the Avars – pushing them back across the Danube by 599. He also conducted campaigns across the Danube, the first Emperor to do so in over two hundred years. In the West, he established two large semi-autonomous provinces called exarchates, ruled by exarchs, or viceroys, of the Emperor. Maurice established the Exarchate of Ravenna, Italy in 584, the first real effort by the Empire to halt the advance of the Lombards. With the creation of the Exarchate of Africa in 590, he further solidified the empire's hold on the western Mediterranean.

Heraclius

Emperor 610 to 641. Heraclius' reign was marked by several military campaigns. The year Heraclius came to power the Empire was threatened on multiple frontiers. Heraclius immediately took charge of the ongoing war against the Sassanid Persians. The first battles of the campaign ended in defeat for the Byzantines; the Persian army fought their way to the Bosphorus. However, because Constantinople was protected by impenetrable walls and a strong navy, Heraclius was able to avoid total defeat. Heraclius drove the Persians out of Asia Minor and pushed deep into their territory, defeating them decisively in 627 at the Battle of Nineveh. Soon after his victory he faced a new threat of the Muslim invasions. In 634 the Muslims invaded Roman Syria, defeating Heraclius' brother Theodore. Within a short period of time the Arabs would also conquer Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt.

Constantine IV - "The Bearded"

Emperor 668 to 685 AD. His reign saw the first serious check to nearly 50 years of uninterrupted Islamic expansion. Constantine organized the Empire for the massive First Arab Siege of Constantinople in 674–678. If Constantinople had fallen all of Europe would have been open to Islamic invasion.

Leo III - The Isaurian

Emperor 717 to 741. Defended the Empire during the Second Siege of Constantinople against an invading Arab army of 80,000 men and a fleet of over 2,500 ships. Leo reformed the laws with the elevation of the serfs into a class of free tenants. Leo began the iconoclast campaign.

Irene of Athens

Irene of Athens Byzantine Empress Regnant from 797 to 802. Prior to becoming Empress regnant, Irene was empress consort from 775 to 780, and empress dowager and regent from 780 to 797. It is often claimed she called herself basileus 'emperor'. In fact, she normally referred to herself as basilissa, 'empress', although there are three instances of the title basileus being used by her. Irene was born to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens. She married Leo IV in 769. Upon Leo's death she became regent for the future Constantine VI. Irene was almost immediately confronted with a conspiracy against her close to home and in Sicily. Irene withstood an invasion by a large Arab army. She subdued the Slavs of the Balkans and laid the foundations of Byzantine expansion and re-Hellenization in the area. Irene's most notable act was the restoration of the Orthodox veneration of icons (images of Christ or the saints). Pope Leo III, who needed help against enemies in Rome and who saw the throne of the Byzantine Emperor as vacant (lacking a male occupant), crowned Charlemagne as Roman Emperor in 800.

Theodora

Empress as the spouse of the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos, and regent of her son, Michael III, from Theophilos' death in 842 to 855. She carried on the government with a firm and judicious hand, and replenished the treasury. The Empress organized the Roman navy and army in multi-front wars against the Arabs and deterred the Bulgarians from an attempt at invasion.

Basil II - The Bulgar Slayer

Emperor 976 to 1025. Basil oversaw the stabilization and expansion of the Byzantine Empire's eastern frontier, and above all, the final and complete subjugation of Bulgaria, the Empire's foremost European foe, after a prolonged struggle. For this he was nicknamed by later authors as "the Bulgar-slayer" by which he is popularly known. At his death, the Empire stretched from Southern Italy to the Caucasus and from the Danube to the borders of Palestine, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests four centuries earlier.

Zoë Porphyrogenita

Zoë (c. 978 – June 1050) reigned as Byzantine Empress alongside her sister Theodora from April 19 to June 11, 1042. She was also enthroned as the Empress Consort to a series of co-rulers beginning with Romanos III in 1028 until her death in 1050 while married to Constantine IX. Theodora and Zoë appeared together at meetings of the Senate. Theodora was the junior empress, and her throne was situated slightly behind Zoë’s in all public occasions.

John II Komnenos and Irene of Hungary

Emperor from 1118 to 1143. The greatest of the Komnenian emperors. In the course of his twenty-five year reign, John made alliances with the Holy Roman Empire in the west, decisively defeated the Pechenegs in the Balkans, and personally led numerous campaigns against the Turks in Asia Minor. John's campaigns fundamentally changed the balance of power in the east, forcing the Turks onto the defensive and restoring to the Byzantines many towns, fortresses and cities right across the peninsula. In the southeast, John extended Byzantine control from the Maeander in the west all the way to Cilicia and Tarsus in the east. In an effort to demonstrate the Byzantine emperor's role as the leader of the Christian world, John marched into Muslim Syria at the head of the combined forces of Byzantium and the Crusader states.

Michael VIII Palaiologos

Reigned as Emperor 1259–1282. Michael VIII was the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty that would rule the Empire until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He recovered Constantinople from the Latin Empire in 1261 and transformed the Empire of Nicaea into a restored Roman Empire. During his reign there was a temporary naval revival in which the Byzantine navy consisted of 80 ships.

Constantine XI Palaiologos

The Last Emperor of the Romans 1449 to 1453. Constantine faced the siege of Constantinople defending his city of 60,000 people with an army only numbering 7,000 men against an Ottoman army of over 80,000. He personally led the defence of the city and took an active part in the fighting alongside his troops in the land walls. At the same time, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain the necessary unity between the Genovese, Venetian and the Greek troops. When the city fell to the Turks he tore off his imperial ornaments so as to let nothing to distinguish him from any other soldier and led his remaining soldiers into a last charge where he was killed.

Total Pageviews

About Me

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.
Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It is us. Only us.
Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach."
- - - Rorschach, Watchmen (1986)

Will taxpayers trust the GOP again?
-
*GOP - A Party of Idiots*
- The fools running the GOP refused to even put a proposition on the
ballot to repeal the insane money-pit bullet train....

14 hours ago

Constantinople

Founded by by Constantine the Great in 324 AD, Constantinople was the captial of the the Eastern Roman Empire and the center of Western civilization for centuries.

Byzantine Algeria

The 6th century Byzantine walls, popularly known as "Solomon's Walls" and flanked by thirteen square towers.Tebessa, Algeria. At its peak the Empire stretched from Morocco and Spain to Italy, Egypt, the Euphrates River, the Caucasus Mountain to the Danube River.

Byzantine Mesopotamia

The citadel of the Roman-Byzantine fortress of Zenobia near Halabiye, Syria. View from the southern wall looking down to the Euphrates River.

Byzantine Italy

The Castle of Sant'Aniceto (also San Niceto) is an Eastern Roman Empire castle built in the early 11th century on a hill in Motta San Giovanni, now in the province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. It is one of the few examples of High Middle Ages architecture in Calabria, as well as one of the few well-preserved Byzantine fortifications in the world. The name derives from that of St. Nicetas, a Eastern Roman admiral who lived in the 7th-8th centuries. The castle is one of the few Byzantine fortifications subjected to the work of restoration and recovery.

Byzantine Croatia

The Byzantine Fortress of Tureta in Croatia. The fortress is the most significant structure on the Kornati islands dating from the Byzantine period. It is located on the island of Kornat and was probably built in the 8th century. It is assumed that the fortress was built up for military purposes to protect and control the navigation in this part of the Adriatic Sea.

Byzantine Egypt

Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. The fortified monastery was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in the 6th century AD, although there was already a church at the site erected by the Empress Helena in 330 AD. The Monastery also has a copy of the Achtiname, in which Muhammad bestowed his protection upon the monastery.

Byzantine Greece

Angelokastro or "Castle of the Angels" is one of the most important Byzantine castles of Greece. It is located on the island of Corfu at the top of the highest peak of the island's shoreline in the northwest coast near Palaiokastritsa and built on particularly precipitous and rocky terrain. It stands 1,000 ft (305 m) on a steep cliff above the Ionian Sea and surveys the City of Corfu and the mountains of mainland Greece to the southeast and a wide area of Corfu toward the northeast and northwest.

Byzantine Anatolia

The Roman-Byzantine Castle of Harput in Anatolia. The strong point Harput was part of both the Roman and Byzantine defensive systems. Eastern Anatolia saw many huge military campaigns from Roman to Byzantine times. This area was involved in multiple wars with the Persian Empire, Arabs and Turks.

Copyright Disclaimer

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

UNDER SECTION 107 OF COPYRIGHT ACT OF 1976 ALLOWANCE IS MADE FOR 'FAIR USE" FOR PURPOSES SUCH AS CRITICISM,COMMENT,NEWS REPORTING,TEACHING,SCHOLARSHIP AND RESEARCH. FAIR USE IS PERMITTED BY COPYRIGHT STATUE THAT OTHERWISE BE INFRINGING. NON-PROFIT,EDUCATION AND PERSONAL TIPS THE BALANCE IN FAVOR OF FAIR USE . . .